Novo Nordisk won't be sucked into a bidding frenzy that's driven up company valuations because the world's biggest insulin producer says it doesn't need acquisitions to grow faster than its largest competitors.

"The reason we have higher multiples than others is because we're expected to grow more than the others," Chief Executive Officer Lars Rebien Soerensen said last week in an interview in Copenhagen. "And then my prediction that we'll become one of the most profitable drug companies in the world will come about."

Consolidation in Europe's pharmaceutical and health care industries is picking up with about $167 billion of deals completed in 2014, up from about $20 billion in the same period of 2013. Novo, which this year leap-frogged GlaxoSmithKline to become Europe's fourth-biggest drugmaker, plans to increase its workforce by 75 percent to about 70,000 people in 10 years without acquisitions, Rebien Soerensen said.

"We don't have any plans to engage in large mergers or buyouts," he said. "We have absolutely no intention or desire. Whether any other constellation may influence us will be decided by who will decide to join forces."

Rebien Soerensen has been head of Novo since November 2000. His company, Scandinavia's biggest by market value, this month reported second-quarter profit that beat analyst estimates and said data from a trial demanded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to assess the heart risk of Novo's Tresiba insulin product will be available sooner than expected.

Novo has seen insulin sales grow about 14 percent a year for the past decade, underpinned by a global diabetes epidemic that shows little sign of abating. That's helped Novo's shares soar 30 percent this year while the company's market value is up 10-fold since 2004.

Novo has a price-earnings ratio of about 26 compared with an average of 24 for its 15 biggest peers. There are signs that industry valuations may be too high as a number of deals fall apart.

Pfizer abandoned a $116 billion effort to buy AstraZeneca on May 26. Pfizer is considering a new approach while also looking at other targets, including Actavis, people familiar with the matter said last week.

"There have been discussions that AstraZeneca could be merged with Pfizer," Rebien Soerensen said. "That would not change our competition as Pfizer has no diabetes business and AstraZeneca has little."